Florida obtains a no bond arrest warrant for Raúl Castro over the 1996 shootdown of two exile planes

Thirty years after Cuban MiGs destroyed two unarmed Cessnas over international waters, Florida has put a price on the man it says gave the order: arrest, with no bond.

Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the warrant on Monday at Florida International University’s College of Law in Miami, alongside Governor Ron DeSantis. The warrant, signed on Friday by Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, charges Raúl Castro with one count of conspiracy to commit first degree murder under Florida law, and orders that he be held without bond. “Raúl Castro ordered the murder of four Floridians in cold blood,” Uthmeier said. “It was not an accident what happened. It was murder. The evidence makes abundantly clear that there was a conspiracy.” Uthmeier’s office reopened the state investigation into Castro after he took office.

On February 24, 1996, three civilian Cessna aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami based group of Cuban exiles that flew search and rescue missions looking for rafters in the Florida Straits, departed Opa-Locka Airport. After the planes crossed the 24th parallel, outside Cuban territorial waters, Cuban fighter jets destroyed two of them with air to air missiles. Four men were killed: Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. Three were US citizens and one was a legal permanent resident. US and United Nations investigations concluded the shootdown took place over international waters.

The state’s affidavit says Castro, who was then Cuba’s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and its first vice president, was a final decision maker in the chain of command that authorised the shootdown. It alleges that Cuban intelligence agents operating in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties as part of the Wasp Network infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, reported its flight plans, and provided the intelligence that enabled the attack, which is the basis for Florida’s claim of jurisdiction. “The investigation revealed evidence of a conspiracy to kill persons aboard BTTR aircraft. The deaths of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr. were the object of that conspiracy,” the warrant reads. The state case is separate from a federal indictment unsealed in May, which charges Castro and five former military officers with seven counts, including murder.

None of that puts Castro in a Florida courtroom. He is 95, he remains in Cuba, and Cuba and the United States have no extradition treaty, so the warrant cannot be served while he stays on the island. Uthmeier argued it could still restrict his travel to countries that cooperate with US law enforcement. Havana’s answer was contempt. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the move on X as a “pathetic Miami circus” with an electoral backdrop. The charges in the warrant are allegations that have not been proven in court. For the families in Miami who have marked February 24 for thirty years, the warrant is the first time a Florida judge has put the name Raúl Castro on an arrest order for the four deaths, and both sides understand it may also be the last word the case ever gets.